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Is this TERMINAL fun?

New Year, New Projects

24 Feb 2015

Status Update

The LibGDX tutorial I had in mind never really happened but I that does not mean I have not done anything with Libgdx.
I have been using it periodically to stay up-to-date but I dont have any plans in mind to use it for a game or app.

I also have been working with Alicia to get a Youtube channel. We just started and we are trying to get ideas on what to focus and how we should do things. The current plan is for her to have a Let'sPlay channel with some other personal anecdotes while I will be doing videos, mostly about Planetside 2.

LibGDX Game Tutorial Coming Soon

13 Jul 2014

Introduction

I am planning on starting to work on a game that has been in my mind for the past four years. Since 2010 I have been on-and-off working on a TBS game very similar to Advanced Wars for Android. Since then I have started multiple projects that were related to certain parts of the development process but I never got to really finish any of them. Or at least finish them to a point that I felt comfortable with them. I did a good tech demo using AndEngine back in 2010 but due to limited time and knowledge I had to stop development. Between 2011 and 2012 I worked on MechTactics, a game engine that handled the network back-end of a multiplayer TBS as well as the game logic. This is the project that I feel came out the best, as I got to achieve the goals that I set for the project. But because of work, research and school, I did not have enought time to work on this sort of side projects. Between 2013 and now I still managed to squeeze some small projects, couple python games and a small java project that I did for school.

Starting with LibGDX

I found LibGdx last year and I worked on some simple demos. LibGDX is definetly more complex than AndEngine but it is also way more powerfull and also cross-compatible with OSX, Web and Dektop. I will document here my development process, remember I am just starting and learning with LibGDX, so this is not going to be a tutorial.

Progress Update

22 Apr 2014

Auraxis Control Center

Version 2.8.X was released! After several months of work, finally I was able to ship the tablet support as well as some general improvements under the hood. After the first day I noticed some minor bugs that were fixed on a ninja-fix with version 2.8.1. After the features were out I started and(after several nights of work) finished adding comments to most of the classes in the game. Now they are easier to understand for newcomers. But I have also noticed a new set of crashes that are affecting a small number of users. With me moving and finishing college I have not have time to go back and fix the errors but is it top priority in the bug tracker. Currently I only have my laptop, which even though capable, it is still not a very good environment to work on. Hopefully I will have some time soon to fix this problems, no ETA though, I will also take it easy as I feel I need some vacations too :).

PS2 Killboard

The app was submitted and approved by the OW team but at the same time I noticed a critical bug that could completely crash the computer. Apparently when multiple kills happen at the exact same time, the Census API may return them in different order every time. If the events come in different order, the killboard will count that as a new events and it will trigger a screen capture. So in theory the API could return a different result on every call, and with that a new screenshot would be taken. Given that the killboards can make requests multiple times a second, that could fill up several gigabytes of data very quickly, eventually making the system to slow down due to all the IO requests.

As I said earlier, I will not have time to work on this and due to the severity of the bug, I decided to ask the OW team to simply remove the app for now. Hopefully I will bring it back at some point.

PS2 Event Streaming

And I saved the best for last. Now the Census API supports the use of websockets to push some data based on in-game events, more info here. Currently the events you can recieve are kills, vehicle kills, player login/logout, territory change and alerts. This opens the windows of possibilities to a completely new set of applications, seen as now we can receive data on demand instead of having to pull every single time. I have some great ideas, but I will talk about them in other time.

Progress in Auraxix Control Center

22 Apr 2014

I have spent the last several days working on a new release for Auraxis Control Center. My main focus for this release is to bring tablet support as well as to improve the documentation for the project.

Right now all the code is at the table_support branch. You can see the progress on this pictures:

Most of the functionality is there but there are still an unexpected behaviour with the action bar that I need to fix. I am planning on finishing this milestone before the end of the month but it will all depend on how my schedule will be.

Planetside 2 Killboard for Overwolf

17 Apr 2014

After being playing with Javascript, HTML and CSS for couple weeks, I decided it was time for me to give this technologies a chance. So I came up with this overlay for Overwolf that will give you live data as well as record you most epic moments.

As some of you know I am a very involved Planetside 2 player. I am working on the Auraxis Control Center and I always trying to see what can do to help the community. With my outfit(Derp Company) me and some members have tried to come up with some ideas of projects we can work on.

One member, Beljoda, started working on a squad-lead assistant application for the Overwolf Overlay. He also developed a Javascript script that wrapped over the Census API and retrieved the information and populated the web page dynamically. At that point I had never worked with CSS or JS but I decided to keep digging, and by using his code I manage to come up with a nice page that gives real time data for a given user(Link). But that page was mostly a prototype to see what data I could use as well as learning how to use the new c:join function.

But having a page that displays data straight from them API was nothing really new or special. So I decided to do something a bit more interesting and came to the idea of checking kills or deaths to trigger a screen shot. And this is the result:

I have a key bind that I use to show or hide this panel, and I also added a link to go to a 'lite' mode of the panel. This will minimize the window but it will keep taking screen shots based on the settings.

It is not Recursion Stat Tracker but it is a neat project, and I like keeping some records of my kills.

I have already submitted the application to the Overwolf team and it will be hopefully accepted in couple weeks.